


New Girl Ficlets

by blithers



Category: New Girl
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2017-09-20
Packaged: 2017-12-09 02:59:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 7,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/769178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blithers/pseuds/blithers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of the comment fic I've written for New Girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Index!

This is a collection of the comment fic I've written on my [tumblr](http://blithers.tumblr.com) for New Girl.

[Mojo Man!](http://archiveofourown.org/works/769178/chapters/1443049)  
Winston’s pouring a cup of coffee when Schmidt walks up behind him, sticks his nose up close to Winston’s ear, and inhales like a wine connoisseur ferreting out a particularly fine vintage. _(G, 611 words, ensemble, added 4/21/13)_

[Sexual Chicken](http://archiveofourown.org/works/769178/chapters/1495684)  
It only starts with the beer gargling. _(PG, 858 words, Nick/Jess, added 5/10/13)_

[Equals!](http://archiveofourown.org/works/769178/chapters/1509255)  
“I’d do the same thing for you,” Schmidt says. “In a heartbeat. Friendship! Subtitled: The Things I’d Do For Nicholas Miller.” _(PG-13, 965 words, Nick/Schmidt, added 5/12/13)_

[Stargazing](http://archiveofourown.org/works/769178/chapters/1523118)  
He drags her down to him and kisses her, open-mouthed and the sweetest he knows how. _(PG-13, 805 words, Nick/Jess, added 5/17/13)_

[Drunken Domestics](http://archiveofourown.org/works/769178/chapters/1717522)  
Drunk Nick is weirdly affectionate and only occasionally depressed and kind of hilariously uncoordinated when it comes to basic leg-and-arm motions. _(G, 242 words, Nick/Jess, added 7/19/13)_

[Hide and Seek](http://archiveofourown.org/works/769178/chapters/1774353)  
"I was here first!" Nick whispered, intense and really close to her face. "And you're tiny, Jess! You could fit in a shoebox, so don't take a whole damn closet!" _(PG, 1003 words, Nick/Jess, added 8/6/13)_

[Three Ways](http://archiveofourown.org/works/769178/chapters/1872577)  
Or maybe it’s the three of them, drunk and laughing during a night out at the bar, crowded up against each other at the back of a booth. _(PG, 334 words, Schmidt/Jess/Nick, added 9/6/13)_

[Titanic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/769178/chapters/2311736)  
"UNSINKABLE BOATS JUST DON'T _SINK_ , JESSICA." _(G, 200 words, Nick/Jess, added 1/18/14)_

[Police Academy](http://archiveofourown.org/works/769178/chapters/2319774)  
They start sleeping together a couple months into the academy. _(PG, 518 words, Cece/Winston, added 1/20/14)_

[Western Saloon](http://archiveofourown.org/works/769178/chapters/4001169)  
The rumor went around fast, and the opinion was unanimous: Nick was going to hate the new hire. _(G, 536 words, Nick/Jess, added 6/27/14)_

[Three One Sentence Fics](http://archiveofourown.org/works/769178/chapters/4001280)  
sleep; disguise; bartending school _(G, 214 words, Nick/Jess + Cece/Winston, added 6/27/14)_

[Moonlighting](http://archiveofourown.org/works/769178/chapters/11314180)  
“And I was like, time travel? No way, man. Pull the other one, am I right?” - a crossover between New Girl and Moonlighting. _(G, 627 words, gen, added 10/04/15)_

[How Julius Pepperwood met Jessica Night](http://archiveofourown.org/works/769178/chapters/27555453)  
She sauntered in, legs like a zombie chase on a sweltering New Orleans night: hot and sweaty and long. _(G, 157 words, Jessica Night/Julius Pepperwood, added 9/20/17)_

[Soulmates](http://archiveofourown.org/works/769178/chapters/27555591)  
Nick’s first soulmark was Winston’s handprint. _(G, 520 words, ensemble, added 9/20/17)_


	2. Index!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winston’s pouring a cup of coffee when Schmidt walks up behind him, sticks his nose up close to Winston’s ear, and inhales like a wine connoisseur ferreting out a particularly fine vintage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mild spoilers for the season 2 episode "Table 34". G, 611 words, ensemble.

Winston’s pouring a cup of coffee when Schmidt walks up behind him, sticks his nose up close to Winston’s ear, and inhales like a wine connoisseur ferreting out a particularly fine vintage.

“What is _up_ with you, man?” Winston yelps, smacking Schmidt away in a dignified, manly fashion.

Schmidt shakes his head with a lazy, curling smile.  “Is that a hint of white floral I detect?  Bold choice.  Go big or go home, am I right?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Schmidt, don’t be weird,” Nick says in his bored-parent voice, not looking up from his plate of bacon and eggs.

“It’s not _weird_  to compliment another man on a well-chosen scent profile,” Schmidt snaps.  “It’s called being a thoughtful friend, Nicholas.  It’s something bros do for bros.”

Nick looks up, furrowing his brow.  “I don’t think that’s…”

“What do bros do for bros?”  Jess wanders into the kitchen with her hair in a messy up-do, rubbing sleep from her eyes.  “I wanna do that.”

Schmidt points at Winston.  “Jess, smell this man and tell me he doesn’t smell amazing.”

Jess frowns, scrunching up her nose.  “That’s something… bros do for…bros?”

“Yes,” says Schmidt firmly.

“Not even slightly correct,” Nick mutters.

Jess pads over to Winston and goes up on her toes to lean close in to him, closing her eyes as she inhales deeply.  “You smell like grapefruit and honey and sleepy Saturday mornings,” she says finally, in a low voice.  She opens her eyes again, looking a little dazed.

Nick’s eyes are wide.  “Winston, my man.  Who _are_  you today?”

Winston is looking down at Jess with the cautiously fearful respect he gives the feral cats in the alley outside the apartment building.  “I’m… not sure.”

Schmidt laughs gleefully and claps him on the shoulder.  “You have got it goin’ _on_.”

Winston purses his lips.  “I have been having a lot of sex lately,” he says thoughtfully.

“Eeeeeh,” says Nick.

“That’s right, son!” Schmidt crows, and high fives Winston.

“Nick, you have got to get over here and get a whiff of this man,” Jess says, leaning back against the counter with her hands wrapped around a hot mug of tea, staying comfortably close to Winston.

“Let’s go with no.”

“Nicholas Miller, every single one of us would do the same thing for you,” Schmidt says sternly.

Nick narrows his eyes.  “That is not a thing, and you know it.”

“C’mon, Nicky,” Winston coos, fighting back a grin.

“ _Fine_ ,” Nick snaps.  “But we are never talking about this again.”

Jess nods.  “Loft secret,” she agrees solemnly, and raises three fingers like a girl scout.

“Loft secret,” Schmidt repeats, rolling his eyes.

Nick steps in close to Winston and inhales, and holds his breath for a long second before exhaling slowly.  Then he shrugs.  “You smell good,” he says.

“ _Good_?” Schmidt scoffs.

Nick scowls.  “Fine.  You want me to say it, I’ll say it.  You smell like a damn sunbeam, Winston.  You smell like clouds on a hot summer day.  You smell like the orange peel in a Manhattan and the bar after closing.”

“I smell like your _bar_?”

“…It’s a good smell,” Nick mumbles.

Winston grins widely at that, pulling out his phone.  “I have got to tell Daisy this,” he says, starting to tap out a text.

“Loft secret!” Nick yells, trying to grab Winston’s phone, who dances it away.

“I didn’t agree to that,” Winston says cheerfully.

Jess takes a thoughtful sip of her tea.  “That’s true.”

“100% accurate,” Schmidt agrees.

Nick glares at both of them and tears off after Winston down the hallway.

Jess and Schmidt clink their mugs together and grin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted [here](http://blithers.tumblr.com/post/48410452832/winstons-pouring-a-cup-of-coffee-when-schmidt).


	3. Sexual Chicken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It only starts with the beer gargling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers for the season two episode "Quick Hardening Caulk". PG, 858 words, Nick/Jess.

It only starts with the beer gargling.

And it’s _ridiculous_ , because Nick’s doing the same old stupid, mundane stuff he always does - grabbing a box of cereal off the top shelf, moonlighting as a wandering gypsy plumber, lounging on the couch with a beer watching one of those sports where guys run around with a ball. She can’t figure out how to explain to anybody else that _Nick was eating a cracker and got crumbs everywhere and he was kind of giving me sex-eyes through the whole thing and it was the most erotic thing I’ve ever seen involving a Ritz cracker, hands-down_.

So: she goes to the bathroom to brush her teeth, and there’s Nick with a towel wrapped around his hips, shaving in the bathroom mirror. He raises an eyebrow at her reflection and tips his chin up to scrape the razor slowly and purposefully up the line of his throat. She swallows hard and trips over her own feet trying to flee.

She wakes up to find that Schmidt has pressed Nick into being his sous chef for their Saturday morning omelette-and-an-action-movie-a-thon. Nick handles a knife competently, the same neat motion he uses when peeling off paper-thin slices of lemon and lime at the bar. When he finishes dicing, he locks eyes with her and sticks two of his fingers in his mouth to suck them clean, and she feels blood rushing to the skin of her face as she watches him, hot and dizzying. Schmidt comes up out of nowhere to smack the back of Nick’s head and launch into a scathing lecture on food prep hygiene, and the bickering that escalates from there gives her cover to _get a hold of yourself, woman_.

It goes on like that for a while.

And then there’s the day that Nick runs to catch the elevator down with her (alone, oh God, alone in a room together, she can barely breath) and he’s doing this smolder-y eye contact thing as he attempts to look sexy while hitting the button for the ground floor and she snaps, “Stop doing that.”

“Doing what?” he asks blandly, with this undercurrent of smugness beneath the thin veneer of innocence he’s barely bothering to put up.

“You know what I mean, Miller. It’s all this,” she flutters her eyelashes up at him, “and this,” she bites her bottom lip and mimes poking at the elevator buttons, “and what even is this,” she re-enacts the scoop-y, flailing dance thing he was trying to do yesterday at the bar. “You’re acting like the femme fatale in some old detective movie.”

“I don’t know, Jess,” he says, sounding annoyed for the first time. “It’s not breaking your rules, is it? So why should it bother you?”

“You, sir,” she hisses, “are trying to eye-seduce me, and you know it.”

“What if I am,” he says flatly, and she sees him take a deep breath before continuing, his voice starting to rise in pitch to Nick Miller levels of irritation. “It shouldn’t matter to you, right? You can do what you damn well please, but I’m abiding by your _rules_ , Jessica. It’s all on you if anything I’m doing turns you on.”

“Turns me on? Turns me _on_?”

His mouth flattens. “You heard me.”

“Is that what you think?”

“That’s exactly what I think.”

“I am…” she takes a sharp, fast breath. “That’s…”

Nick crosses his arms and leans back against the wall of the elevator, raising his eyebrows, and she wants to do _something_ to him, something maybe kind of violent, she wants to knock him down a peg and wipe that smirky look off his face.

“…You wouldn’t like it if I did this to you.”

He tilts his head. “Flirt with me?”

“Yes,” she says firmly.

“I think you’re wrong about that.”

She jabs a finger in his chest, and he looks a little unsure for the first time. “I’m gonna to flirt the crap out of you, Miller. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“It’ll be my pleasure,” he says, but she can hear a soft note of uncertainty in his voice now.

“You think that.”

“You’re telling me a pretty woman flirting with me on a daily basis is going to be too much for me to handle?”

“Yes,” she says darkly, and leans up close into him, breaking their distance rules to stand on her toes and lean into his personal space, and she notices that he’s holding his breath now. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“You’re wrong,” he says, but his voice is quiet and a little raspy, pitched low, and she knows her gaze flickers to his lips, and she knows he sees it, and she knows that _he_ knows that….

The elevator door opens with a soft ping.

She backs up a couple steps and turns back around to face the door again, breathing fast, her heart in her throat.

Oh, it is _on_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted [here](http://blithers.tumblr.com/post/48125262260/kyrafic-menage-a-trois-new).


	4. Equals!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’d do the same thing for you,” Schmidt says. “In a heartbeat. Friendship! Subtitled: The Things I’d Do For Nicholas Miller.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set pre-series, when Nick and Schmidt were roommates in college. Based on a prompt from kyrafic for Nick and Schmidt kissing. PG-13, 965 words, Nick/Schmidt.

“No, man, you gotta be, like…” Nick squeezes his face up and grits his teeth, then wiggles his tongue around in the air, like a dying fish going for one last big flop before the end. “…Like that, you know?”

Schmidt purses his lips thoughtfully, then shakes his head.

”It’s subtle,” Nick allows. “You gotta think of graceful things. _Girl_ things. Like butterflies and spring breezes and how to get the last bit of ice cream out of the bottom of a cone.”

Schmidt perks up. “Oh, you mean like _this_ ,” he says, and curls his tongue up before poking it with violent and rapid aggression approximately two inches underneath the end of his nose, his eyes crossing from the effort.

“No - take it down a notch. Mellow it out. Smoooooth.” Nick contorts his face again and performs a tongue figure-eight in the air that mostly looks like he’s licking his lips after eating a particularly messy plate of spaghetti.

“I am never going to be as good with the ladies as you,” Schmidt mutters.

Nick nods solemnly. “I am very skilled at the sex stuff.”

“Nick, you have to teach me. Elizabeth is a fine woman who deserves the best a man can give her. You have to teach me how to be a _man_.”

“And so I shall, Schmidt,” Nick says, templing his fingers together with a wise smile. “So I shall.”

—-

_Two minutes later:_

“No, no, it’s not like that at all. It’s more like… trying to scrape a piece of old gum up off the concrete. With your tongue. And the gum is really grimy and smashed down by people walking all over it with their shoes and you just gotta _work_ at it, Schmidt, you’ve got to work at that thing with your tongue and your mouth until there’s no more gum on the sidewalk.”

“So I should… like this?”

“…Better.”

—-

_Five minutes later:_

“And finally you…” Nick moves Schmidt’s tongue, pinched between two of his fingers, back and forth in a rough zigzag motion. “Got it?”

“MMmmpphhhhgllllll?” Schmidt mumbles around his captive tongue. Nick sighs, and then shifts his grip on Schmidt’s chin for better leverage and resets everything to its starting position.

“Okay, one more time, from the top - this way and two of that and…”

—-

_Nine minutes later:_

“Like a _ballerina_. Up on your toes and you spin like the prettiest damn ballerina at the ball.”

“Ballerinas don’t…”

“Shut up, Schmidt.”

—-

_Fifteen minutes later:_

“I don’t see it,” Schmidt says, leaning in close to Nick’s mouth and studying it with intense concentration.

“Watch closely… while I…” Nick opens his mouth up another fraction of an inch wider and tries to vibrate his tongue around in a visible and teachable fashion.

Schmidt shakes his head.

“I don’t know, man. I don’t know how to make that any clearer. It’s like you’re the washing machine and you’re going to tumble all over her nice clean laundry.”

Schmidt frowns to himself, chewing at his lip, and then visibly brightens. “I know! You have to do that in my mouth.”

“…What?”

“Yeah. In my mouth!”

“Schmidt, I am not kissing you.”

Schmidt scoffs cheerfully. “Uh, I’m not kissing you either, dummy. I have a _girlfriend_. Who I _love_. And you are going to teach me everything you know so I can make her the happiest woman on this planet. So get over here and stick your tongue in my mouth and show me how to please a woman.”

“I can’t believe I’m considering doing this,” Nick mutters.

“I’d do the same thing for you,” Schmidt says. “In a heartbeat. Friendship! Subtitled: The Things I’d Do For Nicholas Miller.”

“Fine,” Nick says, and grabs Schmidt’s face with both hands, slips his tongue in his mouth, and gives him the old what-for. Their lips slide strangely against each other, and a dim part of Nick thinks that it’s weird how kissing a guy feels pretty much the same as kissing a girl. Their lips come apart with a faint, slick pop.

“Got it?” Nick asks, trying not to sound out of breath.

Schmidt opens his eyes again with a frown. “I think I need it demonstrated one more time.”

Nick rolls his eyes and leans in again.

—-

_Twenty six minutes later:_

“Equals!” Schmidt beams, and high fives Nick’s hand.

“Equals!”

—-

_Eleven years later:_

“You did what-now?” Jess yelps, jumping out of her chair. Next to her, Cece starts to laugh uncontrollably, shoulders shaking with hysterical and silent laughter.

Schmidt grins at all of them proudly. “Nick taught me a lot about how to be a man that day.”

Nick covers his eyes with his hand and slouches lower in his seat. “Don’t…”

“I think… it’s… hot,” Cece manages to gasp out between bursts of laughter.

“I can’t believe you made out with _Schmidt_!” Jess says, mouth still open in shock.

“To be fair,” Schmidt says mildly, “it really wasn’t making out so much educational tongue/mouth contact.”

“Oh my God,” Nick exclaims, hand still over his face, “why are we talking about this?”

“… _Really_ hot,” Cece repeats, with emphasis.

“Am I the _only one_ who hasn’t gotten it on with everybody else in this apartment?” Winston asks. “I mean, damn, you guys. That’s cold.”

“I’ve never kissed Nick,” Cece says.

“You’re welcome,” Nick mumbles graciously.

Schmidt raises an eyebrow. “So that just leaves Jess and Cece.”

Silence falls at the table, and Jess shifts uncomfortably in her chair. Nick sits straight up again, eyes suddenly keen.

“…And I’m back in,” Nick says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted [here](http://blithers.tumblr.com/post/50071886893/ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-im-so-excited-youre-doing-this-one).


	5. Stargazing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He drags her down to him and kisses her, open-mouthed and the sweetest he knows how.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on an anonymous prompt for a kissing meme: "Nick and Jess on the roof after everyone leaves the little star gazing party for Winnie's bday". Spoilers for the season 2 episode "Winston's Birthday". PG-13, 805 words, Nick/Jess.

Jess is sprawled out on the lawn chair next to him.

She flexes her bare feet idly in the spring night and smooths her palm down her arms, prickling gently with goose bumps from the spring chill. The cut daisy from the beer glass is tucked behind her right ear. She's humming an aimless sort of tune, a loose cascade of notes up and down the scale, as she trolls her hand through the air at her side. Normally he hates it when she scores her own life like the heroine in some movie with an uncomplicated morality and a too-perfect ending, but this is… nice. It's pretty and easy. It feels uncomplicated.

(That's a lie, sure, but he'll be damned if it isn't the nicest sort of lie there is.)

Schmidt and Elizabeth stumble their way to the exit, laughing, arms flung over each other in a complex system of mutual support. It's strange to see them fall back together so easily, rediscovering old habits, like layers of unmixed alcohol billowing up into each together with a few clinks of shaken ice cubes. Nick isn't sure if he's watching Schmidt regress back to his college self or growing up, just the tiniest bit.

Maybe growing up is a little bit of both of those things. The thought feels super profound until Nick remembers paying the bills at a large wooden desk as a twelve year old. Something inside of him snaps closed again and rebels against whatever _that_ was, because all he knows is that he doesn't want _that_ to ever be his life again.

He thinks of Jess's dad, bullheadedly curled up in a sleeping bag in the hallway downstairs, bisecting the distance between his bed and Jess's, and he closes his eyes against the dim shine of the stars.

Winston fell asleep in the chair two down from them, head lilting to the side. He's snoring gently to himself. Nick realizes Jess is humming what sounds like a lullaby, like she's a siren who lures men to this deceptively peaceful quiet for some likely nefarious purpose he hasn't quite figured out yet.

The humming stops abruptly, and then, in the darkness, "Hey, Nick?" Her voice is scratchy and low. It's how she'd sounded before she'd fallen asleep last night, all shagged out and loose limbed and he had _done_ that to her, had left her gasping against his neck and moaning words he didn't understand into his mouth, and this was what her voice had sounded like, after.

He clears his throat. "Hey."

"I like this," she says, the words careful and articulated now, like she's reading them off a note card. She drags her hand back and forth in the thick evening air at her side one more time. "I just… I like this, and I liked _that_ , and… I like you." She says it in a rush. "I like you, Nick. No matter what anybody else tries to tell you. I told you first. So. There's that. I like you."

He's quiet for a moment, a dim glow starting to warm his chest, starting deep in his belly and tiptoeing its way up the bones of his ribs, filling his lungs with a liquid warmth. He reaches out for her, tugging at her wrist, and she lets herself be pulled in his direction. She lands on one hip at the edge of his lawn chair.

He drags her down to him and kisses her, open-mouthed and the sweetest he knows how. He's never been good with fancy words, but _this_ , this he can do. She bites gently at his lower lip, almost playfully, so he sweeps a tongue along the slick ridge of her teeth and sinks a little deeper into her mouth with the invitation. Her body is warm compared to the night air around them, slowly bleeding heat into a cloudless black sky. She smells sweet, something like vanilla and the way an oven smells after baking.

She kisses him lazily, like they have all the time in the world. It makes his head spin pleasantly, like one of those slow exposure photos he's seen of the stars, rotating on invisible wires above their heads.

"I like it when you sing like that," he whispers. "You know, the humming thing. It was nice." He can feel it against his lips when she smiles.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," he says He knows his voice has sunk low, soft and serious, and maybe she hears something more than what he says in it, because she stills a little against him and reaches a hand up to trace the rim of his ear, carefully. He watches her face, shadowed in the uneven light of the rooftop.

He leans up to kiss her again, and thinks _maybe_.

And then, a little desperately, _please_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted [here](http://blithers.tumblr.com/post/50671605274/jess-is-sprawled-out-on-the-lawn-chair-next-to).


	6. Drunken Domestics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drunk Nick is weirdly affectionate and only occasionally depressed and kind of hilariously uncoordinated when it comes to basic leg-and-arm motions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written in response to kyrafic's excellent meta-y commentfic on how [Nick gets all cozy and domestic when he's drunk](http://kyrafic.tumblr.com/post/49797451389/bananaleaves-kyrafic-allaboutnewgirl-hi) from a while back. Finally moving this one over to AO3. G, 242 words, Nick/Jess.

And sometimes when they’re out at the bar, Nick’ll come up and throw a clumsy arm around her shoulders. He’ll start calling her sweetheart and asking whose turn it is to take out the trash that week, like that is an area of their lives in need of some serious and concentrated Nick Miller attention (not that he does that - take out the trash, that is, come on, that’s a Jess-and-Schmidt thing - but when Nick is drunk enough he starts to believe he’s part of the rotation). He’ll lean into her body, off-balance and tipsy, his weight heavy and warm and reassuringly solid. Drunk Nick is weirdly affectionate and only occasionally depressed and kind of hilariously uncoordinated when it comes to basic leg-and-arm motions.

(One time, when the bar was quiet and she thought Nick had managed to honest-to-god fall asleep slumped against her side, he had leaned in closer to her and slurred “This is the nicest of the nice things, Jessica" in her ear, wrapped half around her body with his chin tucked down against her shoulder. She had held her breath for a few long minutes after that, but Nick didn’t say anything else. She decided to pretend it never happened. Nick wouldn’t remember saying it, anyway.)

Winston always rolls his eyes at the two of them. Schmidt lifts his eyebrows and pointedly tells her he told her so.

Nick never does take the trash out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted [here](http://blithers.tumblr.com/post/49829545435/kyrafic-bananaleaves-kyrafic).


	7. Hide and Seek

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I was here first!" Nick whispered, intense and really close to her face. "And you're tiny, Jess! You could fit in a shoebox, so don't take a whole damn closet!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for a kissing meme on tumblr, combining pants-n-thing's prompt with an anon request for jawline + cheek kissing. Spoilers for the season 2 episode "Cooler". PG, 1003 words, Nick/Jess.

It was _totally_ her spot.

"Nick," she hissed, and batted at him with the flat of her palms, "this is _my_ spot! Get out of here! Leave! Go away!"

"I was here first!" Nick whispered, intense and really close to her face. "And you're tiny, Jess! You could fit in a shoebox, so don't take a whole damn closet!" He was working his height advantage for all it was worth, shoulders puffed out and stepped in close to loom over her and breathe weirdly in her face. Her stomach flipped over and started to feel all warm and nervous. Her body was having all sorts of _feelings_ about Nick Miller lately, all on its own, and Jess was so not down with that. No sir! So what if he'd kissed her! She was stronger than that. She knew what Nick was, and she knew _exactly_ why this was a bad idea.

She pressed her lips together and stared back at him, sticking up her nose defiantly. "You were _not_ here first."

"I don't -" he started to say, and cut off suddenly. He pivoted toward the kitchen where they'd all left Winston with his eyes closed, counting down loudly from a hundred.

"…Three …two … _one_. USA, USA, come and get me, mother may!"

"Crap," Nick muttered, and they sprang into action together, reaching for the knob of the laundry closet in unison. Nick pushed her ahead of him, his hand urgent at the small of her back. They wedged themselves inside as fast as they could, Jess pulling the sliding door shut behind them. They stood frozen in the darkness, crammed together in the tiny room, listening for the sound of footsteps.

The loft laundry room was a glorified linen closet; it would have been a tight fight for even one of them. The only light coming in through the door was a thin stream of yellow at the top. Their hips were smashed up against each other now and his arm was braced between her body and the door, the palm of his hand resting on a wooden shelf behind her that was poking uncomfortably into her lower back. 

The dim light made Nick into this grey, formless shape in front of her, like he wasn't even _Nick_ but some anonymous idea of a man she might meet out on the street, tall and wide-shouldered and faceless. And Jess was starting to realize what a terrible idea this whole sharing-a-hiding-spot was, because, even beyond the fact that they were all up on each other in here, Nick smelled good. Stupid Nick Miller smelled _amazing_. Hide and seek losers did shots of the winner's choosing, and the last round had been lemon vodka ala Schmidty. Nick smelled sweet and citrusy and sharp with the clean bite of hard alcohol, and (even worse) there was a clean, musky note of soap where her nose was pressed up close to his chest. _So_ unfair.

He shifted against her body, and his knee worked its way between legs, and oh God, that was _it_.

"Don't _do_ that!" she whisper-yelled.

"Do what?" he asked, voice low and rumbling, slouching down to say the words in her ear. The shiver of a chill, followed closely by a weird rush of warmth, went down her spine.

His head was bent down close to her. His breath was loud against the shell of her ear, like she was listening to a seashell that also happened to be a person that she was kind of sexually attracted to - which, okay, was a weird metaphor, but right now she just had a lot of _complicated thoughts about the ocean_ , okay?!

She felt Nick move then, and his lips brushed the line of her jaw, just below her ear. And then - and _then_ she felt the tip of his tongue, small and hot and wet, against the skin of her neck.

She sucked in air through her teeth.

It wasn't a kiss, exactly, because he just stayed there, motionless, his mouth open and pressed up against her jawline, tasting her carefully. His nose was stuck back behind her ear, buried in her hair. His breath tickled the thin skin there.

She was painfully aware of _all_ of it, just the tiniest bit of his tongue against her pulse, his body pressed up against hers in the dark, confined space.

She exhaled, unsteady and loud.

" _That_ ," she whispered. Her voice sounded low and strained, even to herself. "Don't do that."

"You need to be quiet," he said, mumbling the words into her skin. The tone was all wrong for the Nick Miller she knew, with his plaid shirts and sweaty back and childish defiance. He sounded calm and lazily distracted, like making out (no, nope, strike that, they were not _making out_ , he was just, like, breathing creepily on her neck, and maybe there was some sort of licking thing happening? Was that something the kids were into these days??) in the linen closet brought out the best in the man, like this was the moment of his life where he was finally going to rise to the occasion and _own it_.

His hand dropped to her waist then, his fingers long and blunt against her hip. He dragged his nose up the line of cheekbone, super slow. She could feel his breath on her cheek.

He pressed a second kiss there, an inch or so to the left of her mouth and up.

She swallowed, and resisted the urge to lick her lips.

"BAM!" Winston screamed from somewhere nearby, and Jess jumped about a foot straight up. "I know you guys are here. Don't nobody hide from Winston _Bishop_."

Nick's fingers tightened painfully on her waist for a second before his hand dropped, fast and guilty, at his side.

"DAMN IT, WINSTON," Nick yelled, and oh yeah, there it was again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted [here](http://blithers.tumblr.com/post/57540955533/a-n-sorry-pants-n-things-i-dont-watch-bones).


	8. Three Ways

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or maybe it’s the three of them, drunk and laughing during a night out at the bar, crowded up against each other at the back of a booth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three ways that Nick and Schmidt and Jess might happen, from a discussion with [kyrafic](http://kyrafic.tumblr.com). General spoilers through season 2. PG, 334 words, Schmidt/Jess/Nick.

Maybe the no-nail oath takes an unexpected legal left turn and Nick ends up kissing Schmidt to make everything right, only Nick moves into it instinctively, because sometimes the two of them make out for a while when they’re both single, in a bro sort of way. And maybe they forget that Jess doesn’t know that, doesn’t know that sometimes they kiss because they’re bored and lonely and horny, so that when Jess kisses Schmidt again it’s a surprise, her hand on Nick’s waist, her fingers hooked into the belt loops at Nick’s back, up on her tiptoes and leaning into Schmidt’s body.

Or maybe it’s the three of them, drunk and laughing during a night out at the bar, crowded up against each other at the back of a booth. Their knees keep bumping up together under the table. They’re all drinking from the same glass, their lips touching the rim at the same place, and Jess laughs and puts her arms up around both of her guys, squashing them down to her height, her guys, Nick and Schmidt, these guys that she loves. And maybe none of them want the evening to end after they stumble home at bar close, arms linked around each other in the dark.

Or it’s Valentine’s day, and Jess has got the dirty twirls, you see, and they’re all hanging out in the kitchen after Jess and Schmidt strike out and Julia has broken it off with Nick, eating ice cream and commiserating about their love lives over an open pint of ice cream. Jess’s tongue is cold and sweet the first time she kisses Nick, her hand on Schmidt’s knee. And maybe Nick kisses her back, his tongue in her mouth, and her hand tightens, bunching up the fabric of Schmidt’s pants. And maybe Schmidt kisses Nick next, because he’s always wanted to kiss Nick, has wanted to since college, and when Schmidt kisses Jess finally, he smiles against her lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted [here](http://blithers.tumblr.com/post/58758278753/schmidt-jess-nick).


	9. Titanic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "UNSINKABLE BOATS JUST DON'T _SINK_ , JESSICA."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for an anonymous prompt for an AU meme on tumblr: "Nick and Jess on the Titanic." G, 200 words, Nick/Jess.

"UNSINKABLE BOATS JUST DON'T _SINK_ , JESSICA."

"HAVE YOU LOOKED AROUND LATELY? REALITY BEGS TO DIFFER. OPEN YOUR EYES, NICK."

"UH, I DON'T NEED MY _EYES_ TO TELL ME WHAT MY _BRAIN_ ALREADY KNOWS, DUMMY."

Schmidt cleared his throat, eyeing the incoming water. "…Uh, guys?"

Nick and Jess whirled around in unison. "WHAT?"

Winston, next to Schmidt, pointed silently at the water.

"HA," Jess exclaimed, and jabbed a righteous finger at their feet, rapidly being enveloped in ice water. "Take THAT, MILLER."

Nick scoffed and shivered at the same time, an awkward sort of multi-purpose gesture. "Probably just a leak in the plumbing."

"Plumbing? PLUMBING?"

"I could fancy fix this in a second, if the man wasn't out to keep the working man down --"

"Oh my GOD," Jess exclaimed, and stepped up close to Nick, her chin stuck up stubbornly a couple inches away from his. "You are so ANNOYING," she said, and rapidly began to disprove her point by attaching herself by the mouth to Nick's face.

Winston turned to Schmidt. "Looks like it's up to us, my brother."

Schmidt sniffed and straightened his shirt cuff. "Like I'd die in some dumb sinking ship. Momma didn't raise no fool."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted [here](http://blithers.tumblr.com/post/73749133793/nick-and-jess-on-the-titanic).


	10. Police Academy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They start sleeping together a couple months into the academy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for a prompt from [macyaudenstar](http://macyaudenstar.tumblr.com/) for an AU meme: "Cece and Winston, police academy." Mild spoilers for season 3-era stuff. PG, 518 words, Cece/Winston.

They start sleeping together a couple months into the academy.

It happens for a couple reasons:

1) Cece is crazy hot. Like, craaaaazy hot. She's got honest-to-god model looks and legs that go from here all the way down to _there_ and the first time that Winston had tried to talk to her (at the bar, after hours, Cece drinking a vodka gimlet and sitting coolly away from the rest of the - mostly male - candidates) he'd stammered out something there being a gun in her pocket and he was happy to see… no, wait… shit. But she’d smiled at him, and it had been unexpectedly kind.

2) She starts it. Which is, really, the main reason. Winston Bishop ain't got game; he lost any mojo he might have had with the ladies the second he lost the basketball in his hand, and even training for being a cop doesn't give you much of a leg up when everybody else you know is also going to be in the force. He'd ended up helping Cece with some of her PT work (because a flair for repetitious drills is the one take-away skill he's gained from a second-tier career in basketball), and he kind of liked that they'd been starting to be friends during their early morning workouts. He guesses that's why he's the one she pulls by the collar into the bathroom at the bar that night.

So, yeah. They're sleeping together. At first it's just an every-once-in-a-while thing, because Cece gets wound up after she has a good round at the shooting course and Winston's got a weird thing for a lady with a gun. It goes like that, super casual, until Cece shows up at his loft one night, waking up all his roommates. It takes Winston a couple minutes to realize that Cece wants to crash at the loft, because the Sergeant had chewed her out for a dumb mistake she'd made and she'd maybe felt a little lonely, too.

Winston introduces her to the fine art of puzzling that night, bringing her in on his latest challenge with the air of a man laying forth all the mysteries of the world at his disposal. Cece had watched him, alternating between slack-jawed amazement and doubled over with laughter, until she fell asleep in his bed with Furguson purring warm and heavy on her stomach.

And it's not like they become a thing after that - not at all like that - but the sleeping together thing becomes less of a production and more - easy, Winston supposes. Intimate. He tries to explain the feeling to Schmidt, who scoffs at him but spends a while looking weirdly vulnerable after that, and his other roommate Nick, which only sets Nick off into a new spiral of third-time Caroline breaks depression (and really, Winston should've known better on that one).

When they both graduate together, later that spring, Winston catches Cece's eye across the crowd and she smiles at him, this soft, secret thing, and he thinks, yeah, okay. Maybe he's doing a lot better than he thought he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted [here](http://blithers.tumblr.com/post/73791490734/cece-and-winston-police-academy).


	11. Western Saloon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rumor went around fast, and the opinion was unanimous: Nick was going to hate the new hire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for a prompt from [inkyfingers2](http://inkyfingers2.tumblr.com/): "Nick/Jess, old western saloon." No specific spoilers. G, 536 words, Nick/Jess.

The rumor went around fast, and the opinion was unanimous: Nick was going to hate the new hire. She was a friend of Cece’s, hired on as a waitress and back-up saloon singer for the summer rush (and who would have guessed that there was a _summer rush_ for a themed Western bar/saloon stranded somewhere on the east side of L.A. in the first place?) but, more importantly, here’s the part everybody was very clear on - Nick was going to _hate_ her.

"Jess? No, Jess is the best," Cece said, wiping down the bar counter at the end of the day. She was wearing the not-so-coveted Sheriff’s star today, the current target of management’s employee-of-the-week vendetta.

Winston spun his fake pistol. “Yeah, but Jess and _Nick_?”

Cece looked up. “Oh, yeah, no. Not even a bit. Total disaster.”

—

Nick scoffed at all of them until the day he actually met Jess. He cornered Winston afterward and chewed him out about it, which went something like, “WHY DID NONE OF YOU WARN ME ABOUT THIS WOMAN.”

"Aw, Nick. Cheer up, buckeroo!" Jess chirped, showing up from out of nowhere, right in the middle of Nick and Winston’s heatedly whispered argument. Nick screamed in terror at her sudden appearance out of thin air and ran.

Jess just frowned after him, smoothing a hand down the massive swinging hips of her can-can skirt.

—

Schmidt was in charge of the marketing for the bar, printing up little runs of fliers to advertise their Western-themed run of happy hours (Mechanical Bull Monday, Tumbleweed Tuesday, Cowgirls Drink Free Wednesday, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral Thursday, Frontier Friday, and Save-a-Horse Saturday, the last of which Jess didn’t really get until she pulled her first Saturday shift). Schmidt was also the one who came up with the idea to have some of the chorus line work bar on busy days, effectively doubling their entertainment floor.

Which was how Nick and Jess found themselves tending bar together, one hectic Mechanical Bull Monday.

Jess messed up most of her drink orders and Nick spent a lot of time yelling - at her, at the customers, he wasn’t picky. But the singing and dancing part was actually a hit. Jess had a low, throaty voice that was lost in the background chorus, but stood out on its own, and while her idea of dancing consisted of a lot of tap and jazz hands - which was _ridiculous_ in the aggressively poofy red dress they had her in - she mostly remembered to change into riding-a-horse stirrup motions at the last minute. It was… nice. 

So he taught her to make a whiskey old fashioned after bar close, because that would be one less thing on his plate for the next time. Her voice was uncharacteristically quiet when she thanked him.

—

"Sooooooo," Cece said, sliding up next to Jess at the bar, where she was polishing glasses. "You and Nick, huh?"

Jess flushed. “What? No. _Never._ Ha, like I would. He is… he… so _annoying_.”

Cece raised an eyebrow, then threw in a smirk as well, just in case the eyebrow thing was too subtle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted [here](http://blithers.tumblr.com/post/74012039645/nick-jess-old-western-saloon).


	12. Three One Sentence Fics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sleep; disguise; bartending school

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three one-sentence ficlets, written for prompts from [jaegermighty](http://jaegermighty.tumblr.com/), [diaphenia](http://diaphenia.tumblr.com/), and an anonymous poster. General spoilers through the end of season 3. G, 214 words, Nick/Jess + Cece/Winston.

**Nick and Jess - sleep**

His sheets still smell like that dumb Old Spice knock-off he hoards on the top shelf in the bathroom and she unearths three handwritten pages of W is for Werewolf from the folds of the bedspread, and really, they’re all signs that she made the right decision (…right??), but Jess buries her nose in Nick’s pillow, plaid and faded and soft underneath her cheek, and tries not to think about the fact that you’re not supposed to sneak into a guy’s bed after you break up with him, whatever that means.

**disguise!!!**

"Nick’ll never guess," Jess says, pulling the ski mask down over her face and going for a brave mixture of womanly confidence and sexy mystery, and Cece doesn’t have the heart to tell her that, oh, sweetheart, _everybody_ is going to know.

**Cece/Winston, bartending school**

"No, no, no," Cece says, starting to laugh a little, "like _this_ ,” and she takes the shot glass from Winston and measures out a neat double into the cocktail glass before handing it back to him with a flourish, which he accepts, takes a sip of and pulls a face - because, despite her fancy new bar credentials, Cece hadn’t quite gotten the hang of the difference between sour mix and lemon juice yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted [here](http://blithers.tumblr.com/post/80413233848/new-girl-nick-and-jess-sleep), [here](http://blithers.tumblr.com/post/80414702968/new-girl-disguise), and [here](http://blithers.tumblr.com/post/80509042819/cece-winston-bartending-school).


	13. Moonlighting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “And I was like, time travel? No way, man. Pull the other one, am I right?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A crossover between New Girl and Moonlighting, written for [ghostcat](http://ghostcat3000.tumblr.com/) on her birthday. G, 627 words, gen.

“And I was like, time travel? No way, man. Pull the other one, am I right?”

The scary blonde lady with the shoulder pads tapped a pen against her desk a couple times. “And that’s how you ended up here.”

“I mean, more or less.”

“In… the 1980s.”

“And boy are my arms tired!” Nick said, then laugh-winced.

The woman stared at him for a few long, steady moments, and then threw her head back and screamed “Addi- _son_!” Nick startled like a squirrel and raised his hands defensively up to his chest.

A head appeared in the doorway. “You rang?”

“If this,” the lady pointed at Nick, “is your idea of a joke, David, you’ve got another thing coming.”

“Another thing?”

“A different thing.”

“A second thing?”

The woman glared. “Another thing.”

The two occupants of the office turned in unison to stare at Nick, who frowned suspiciously back at them.

“I don’t believe we’ve met yet. I’m David,” the man said, walking in to shake Nick’s hand, wearing a suit like some sort of Miami Vice deal. “David Addison.”

“Nick. Nick Miller,” he said, and threw up some double finger-guns and pulled the triggers. Boom! Instant street cred.

“And I’m Maddie, Maddie Hayes,” the blonde said drily. “Tell the man here what year you’re from, Mr. Miller.”

David put his chin on his fist, leaning forward on the desk. “Why do I have a feeling this is going to be good?”

“2015.”

David put his a hand over his heart and swooned. “Did Christmas come early this year?”

“So you’re telling me, David,” Maddie said, hands planted firmly on her hips, “that you had nothing to do with… _this_.”

“I’m not a _this_ ,” Nick said, feeling his face go hot. “I’m a MAN. A man from the FUTURE.”

“Who wins the World Series next year?” David asked.

Nick shrugged. “How would I know?”

“What stocks should I buy?”

Nick squinted up at the ceiling. “Tech…nology… stuff?”

“Who’s the next president?”

Nick furrowed his brow.

“Amazing,” Maddie said. She tapped her pen a couple more times on the desk. “How exactly do you think we can help you, Mr. Miller?”

“Aren’t the two of you detectives?”

“I prefer the term _private dick_ myself,” David said.

“Then detective me into the future! Private dick me back to my own time!”

“Did we switch genres when I wasn’t looking?” David asked, apparently to the room at large.

“It wasn’t like I wanted to travel through time,” Nick said angrily. “I can’t help it if time travel happens to innocent people! I didn’t _make_ the system, man!”

“Do you know what detectives actually do, Mr. Miller?”

Nick leaned back and crossed his arms defensively over his chest. “I’ve been undercover before.”

“I think we can handle a little time travel, Maddie,” David said, soothingly. “How hard could it be?”

“Time travel, David. _Time travel_.”

“If the people want some Twilight Zone, let’s give ‘em Twilight Zone.” David whipped out a pencil and a small, official-looking pad of paper. “Mr. Miller, what exactly were you doing before… _before_?”

The whole memory was fuzzy, but Nick vaguely remembered… “Drinking at Clyde’s.”

David threw the paper and pencil carelessly over his shoulder, his face lighting up. “This just keeps getting better and better. Maddie, you heard the man. We’ve got us some staking out to do with our good friends Al and Cohol.”

“Oh good,” Maddie said. “This is definitely going to end well.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted [here](http://blithers.tumblr.com/post/129876746648/a-short-little-snippet-new).


	14. How Julius Pepperwood met Jessica Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She sauntered in, legs like a zombie chase on a sweltering New Orleans night: hot and sweaty and long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for an anonymous prompt on my tumblr: "New Girl backstory: How Julius Pepperwood met Jessica Night." G, 157 words, Jessica Night/Julius Pepperwood.

She sauntered in, legs like a zombie chase on a sweltering New Orleans night: hot and sweaty and long. Pepperwood put the gun he was polishing down on the top of his desk, watching her cautiously. If life had taught him anything, it was that brunettes in ballet flats brought nothing but trouble with them.

“Mr. Pepperwood?”

“That’s the name on the door.”

She held out her hand. “Jessica Night.”

He took her hand; it was small in his own, with hearts neatly painted on her damn fingernails. Trouble, that’s what this one was all right.

He leaned back from her and put his feet up on the desk. “And what seems to be the problem?”

She leaned closer to him, eyes wide and dark. “ _Murder_ ,” she whispered.

He smiled for the first time since that terrible night, so many years ago. “Then you’ve come to the right place, sweetheart. Murder just happens to be… my specialty.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted [here](http://blithers.tumblr.com/post/162728514063/new-girl-backstory-how-julius-pepperwood-met).


	15. Soulmates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick’s first soulmark was Winston’s handprint.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for a prompt from [rhymesofblue](https://rhymesofblue.tumblr.com/): "New Girl, OT5 or just Nick/Jess, the five people who love Nick Miller more than he will ever know (or, at least, understand)." G, 520 words, ensemble.

Nick’s first soulmark was Winston’s handprint, a childish smear of deep green just below his right knee, where Winston had grabbed his leg when they were pretending to be zombies as kids in Chicago. It had shocked both of them; they knew you weren’t supposed to touch people without permission, and that soulmates were personal and something that adults spoke about in quiet tones, but neither had expected that stain of forest green on Nick’s leg, or how the palm of Winston’s hand would turn the same dark shade, like it had been dipped in paint, for the rest of his life. Then Winston had laughed, because of course the two of them were soulmates (what a dumb question, Miller).

He’d met Schmidt freshman year of college, when soulmarks were a thing that people tried for with every new person they met, the thrill of illicit touch turning into the routine of greeting. Both of them were shocked out of their mutual coolness by the appearance of an orange fingerprint, bright like a berry, underneath Schmidt’s ear where Nick had pressed his thumb. They’d stared at each other, flabbergasted, until Schmidt had blushed and started stammering something about never had met a soulmate before, how they were going to be the _best_ of friends, he just knew it, and they’d both decided to room together that year after all.

When he’d met Jess, Nick had known he didn’t want to touch her. He was pretty sure they weren’t soulmates anyway, because he’d never be soulmates with somebody that petite and annoying, even if he did want to make out with her sometimes (sleeping Nick was a different guy). It wasn’t until he was sitting on a beach at night, not sure if he would find out if he was living or dying the next day, with Jess asleep next to him on the sand that he touched her, tentatively, on her bare shoulder. Crimson like blood blossomed underneath his hand where he touched her, spreading out like tendrils into her skin and wrapping around his own fingers. A shiver of dread and anticipation sunk down Nick’s spine like cold air before he shook her awake. He stared at his fingers that night, after the diagnosis came back clean, with the red curls of Jess’s soulmark on his skin new and strange.

Cece had never asked him about touching each other. She was an oddly private person for a model, discreet with her own soulmarks, which were often covered in makeup and concealer for her jobs. It wasn’t until her wedding, Schmidt and herself radiant with the moment, surrounded by the loft and their friends and family and love, that she’d leaned over to grasp Nick’s elbow and sky blue had stained both of their skins. Cece had smiled and leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek then, and Schmidt had clapped both of them on the back, beaming. Winson and Jess came up to them then, laughing, soulmarks, bright and dark, on the skin of all of them.

Nick closed his eyes and let himself believe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted [here](http://blithers.tumblr.com/post/162887263053/for-the-fanfic-ask-meme-im-so-happy-youre).


End file.
